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Gillian Cummings teaches workshops at a hospital in White Plains, New York. Her poems have appeared in Cincinnati Review, CutBank, and The Laurel Review.
What Brings Cloud-Girls Joy
A door, a door to look down through,
to see the dappled fawn fumble forward
after the doe who breaks the brake, all hoof,
all spindle-legs, all supple muscle, this strength
in gentle things, and through the door
strawberries, cream to swell the larder,
a drink too thin in its thick for the wiry wolf,
too much sylph for him to swallow, so safe
stay the suckling small dreamers, those thirsty,
threadbare souls who, new to earthy awareness,
find heaven a makeshift haven, a humble home,
as do these girls who spy summer through a keyhole
and covet the heady zing of morning glory seeds,
that dizziness that shakes the far-domed world,
but what they miss most, what would bless and bliss them
is not to be found in pasture or prairie: the promise
of heels ticking time across a ballroom floor, as they,
storybook silken in their thistledown gowns,
hook arm-in-arm with soft-hearted strangers.
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